Comparison of dissociative ionization of H₂, N₂, Ar₂, and CO by elliptically polarized two-color pulses

J. Wu, A. Vredenborg, L. Ph. H. Schmidt, T. Jahnke, A. Czasch, and R. Dörner

Accepted Tuesday Jan 29, 2013

We study directional dissociative ionization of diatomic molecules (H2, N2, Ar2, CO) by intense phase-controlled elliptically polarized two-color pulses. The phase between the two colors of our elliptically polarized two-color pulse is unambiguously and straightforwardly assigned by tracing the rotating-laser-field streaked momentum of the released electron which is imprinted in the momentum of the correlated ion. The laser-driven electron motion, electron-localization-assisted enhanced multielectron ionization, and the role of the orbital shape for the asymmetric dissociative ionizations of various molecules are discussed.